Lighting / Stealth / Hide in Plain Sight Overview

[davidvs]

I've written an overview of rules about lighting, Stealth, and Hide in Plain Sight. This is hopefully a quick read and clearly written.

Thanks to forum folks for pointing out which issues were confusing and deserved attention!

I've identified five issues for which house rules are currently needed. If any game designer has the time and inclination, please provide some official rulings for all of us customers who enjoy playing sneaky characters! It is so much easier to GM when the rules are clear or have been clarified.

Other constructive feedback, from anyone, is also welcome.

[Josh M Foster]

davidvs wrote:

I've written an overview of rules about lighting, Stealth, and Hide in Plain Sight. This is hopefully a quick read and clearly written.

Thanks to forum folks for pointing out which issues were confusing and deserved attention!

I've identified five issues for which house rules are currently needed. If any game designer has the time and inclination, please provide some official rulings for all of us customers who enjoy playing sneaky characters! It is so much easier to GM when the rules are clear or have been clarified.

Other constructive feedback, from anyone, is also welcome.

Great read, very clear, and pretty dang informative. Nice work.

One thing you might add would be a section for sniping, though it's not as necessary, as both assassin and shadowdancer tend to melee.

[Matthew Fenn]

Excellent piece of work. I agree that a section on sniping and sneak attack would be useful. If someone readies a defence against a sniper, does this mean that the sniper would be unable to get his sneak attack damage?

[Cevah]

*raise thread for guide*

There has been much written on Stealth since the last post here.

Check out "6 questions about Stealth" for an example from Shadowlord.

Your guide states "2. If the hiding attacker leaves the hiding place to make the attack then the three benefits of attacking from hiding are also lost. In other words, during a rush from hiding the readied defender has time to recognize a favored enemy or prepare a precision strike, mollify the attacker's to-hit "surprise" bonus, and recover any potentially lost AC." I believe the "breaking stealth" rules mean that this is not correct. The stealth attack still gets the benefits, but the readied attack does not go against a concealed or invisible target.

Shadowlord has made an effort to appear in many stealth threads, and has brought up many facts that you could add.

/cevah